Description Of The Mystical Trance By Plotinus 1 Poem by Genova Maaa my mother

The whole christian doctrine of ecstasy, on its metaphysical side, descends from that great practical transcendentalist Plotinus, who is known to have been an ecstatic, and has left in his Sixth Ennead a description of the mystical trance obviously based upon his own experiences.
„Then the soul neither sees, nor distinguishes by seeing, nor imagines that there are two things; but becomes as it were another thing, and not itself…
But becoming wholly absorbed in Deity, she is One,
conjoining as it were centre with centre. For here concurring they are one; but when they are separate they are two…Therefore in this conjunction with Deity
there were not two things, but the perceiver was one with the thing perceived, as not being Vision but Union; whoever becomes one by mingling with Deity, and afterwards recollects this union, will have within himself and image of it…. He becomes established in quiet and solitary union" (Plotinus, Ennead vi.9) .